Mandolino’s Artisan Pizza, a highly-anticipated second restaurant by the folks at Flatiron Kitchen+Taphouse, is located in the heart of Davidson’s Historic District.
Established in 2018 by Flatiron Chef Bill Schutz and other founding partners, Mandolino’s was created to combine family values and comforting tradition with great food in a quaint Main Street storefront. Grandma-style pizza has roots in Italy, but originated on Long Island, NY. A place for everyone! Every college town needs a great pizza place, and Mandolino’s is just that (plus much more)! Located at 206 S. Main Street.
C Marsh
The service was great by our server so that was nice! BUT its hard to mess up a pizza but this was honestly the worst pizza I’ve ever had. The smell that lured us there was amazing BUT the taste was horrible. We ordered half pepperoni, red onions, garlic and roasted red peppers and there was so much garlic it was not edible. The appearance looked amazing too but there was something so yucky about that unroasted garlic that just oh my gosh don’t order it on your pizza! I think this could be a great pizza place but the flavors are waaayyy off! Center of pizza was under cooked and outer edges were too hard to eat. BUT the place is really adorable and the location is nice.
… moreMike Stamps
To start, our server was excellent. Ordered an Arugula salad and tomato soup which was great. Our server gave us extra croutons for our 2-year old to dip in the soup because he loved them so much. Thanks! Also ordered the Tupelo Honey pizza – it looked good but we only gave a small square to our son before asking for the to-go box. It was Friday night and there was a long line waiting to sit and we were happy to go home with the pizza and give up our table. In the shuffle of getting our kid out the door, we left the pizza box on the table. Realized this half way to the car and came back to pick it up (less than 2 minutes later) but they had efficiently cleaned the tabled and tossed the almost full pizza in the trash citing regulatory concerns. This is perfectly good reasoning, but as 95% of that $30 pizza was still in the box, I’d expect them look for us as we were slowly leaving with a 2-year old, or hold the box for a couple minutes in the to-go area. Not to be. And that is fine, but now we just spent $60 on a salad and cup of soup so we asked the manager if they could do anything. This is where customer service broke down completely, said they were too busy and offered a punch card that would net us a pizza for 50% off if we came in 8 more times – that response was so thoughtful that we just couldn’t accept. Perhaps offering an app or pizza for 50% off during our next visit would have been a better course of action? We liked the place in general but it was a bad experience in the end. Also – I obviously cannot comment on the taste of the pizza although it looked like it would be good.
… moreLauralei Burnette
This place Used to be great!!! Food, service have all gone down hill. We ate there today. Our server “Paradise” was friendly however her serving skills are ZERO. She brought out all our food and once, 2 appetizers and my entree. When we said can we please not have our entree with the appetizers, because who does that, she grasped her chest and made a Houdini disappearing act on us. Never Ever to be seen again!!!!! Then my food sat on a counter for 20 minutes whilst I and my husband ate our appetizers. A nice young kid came and said he would be taking care of us going forward.
My pasta was good but not as good as before. The appetizer Burrata was horrible, zero flavor and not worth the 18.00 dollars. The cheese sticks were just Okay, and my husband’s lunch pizza was Horrible. We were hungry so we ate our food. But between the horrible service and crappy Rap music playing we won’t be back.
The hostess/ server guy did take off the Burrata, but we also didn’t eat it.
I’ve been dining here for years, and it was so much better before Covid. But that’s been almost 6 years now.
I miss the English server girl, she was Excellent and so was the food. And please ditch the Rap.
Maybe it’s better on the weekend, but we won’t know, because at a hundred bucks for crappy food and crappy service, long time customer won’t be going back.
… moreJoe Kraft
The highest compliment I can give Mandolinos is that after twenty years of living in Arizona, now living in Davidson, our little local pie has become my all time favorite. Think Detroit more so than Chicago, but it isn’t Detroit style per se.
The crusts aren’t charred like oven-fired, but very rich and crispy. Everything is fresh, and we have never had a bad order, or something different than we expected. Good cocktails, and appetizers that wouldn’t be out of place at a fine dining experience.
… moreKatherine Hilton
Visited Mandolino’s pizza last weekend for lunch. Originally we were headed somewhere else but stumbled across this place. What a blessing that was because we have a new favorite place for pizza! The atmosphere was cozy. Great tables that line the windows looking out on main st in busy downtown Davison. The side of the building was lined with more booths and tables. The staff was SO friendly and extremely helpful. This was our first time visiting and our waiter made sure to show us the ropes. Not to mention, they were extremely understaffed, but that didn’t stop him from taking his time to answer questions about the menu or recommended his favorites. He was super apologetic because he thought service was lacking. He was taking care of, what appeared to be, the entire dining room by himself. We didn’t notice. He was fantastic! The pizza was outstanding. We got just a plain cheese pie, fried mozzarella sticks and giant garlic knots. The crust was perfect consistency, the sauce was fresh and the cheese was so flavorful and delicious. The price was higher than I normally like to pay but the quality was worth it. Can’t wait to visit again.
… moreBrad Kosar
Good food, consistently slow service. We’ve visited a few times and enjoy the pizza but their staff are super inefficient. Maybe because they’re all students but they could use a lesson in customer service. Slow to greet, slow to seat, slow to order, slow to bring a check. They could probably turn a few more tables a night if their staff worked a little smarter and faster. I had to get up and walk to the cashier to pay my bill after not seeing a server for 20 minutes. Yet there are still staff awkwardly standing around.
Decent beer selection. Limited wine selection. Skip most of the entrees and enjoy the pizza.
Also, there’s this strange stack of boxes on a counter in the dining room. Not great ambiance.
… moreSevor Klu
Love, love this place. The pizzas are really good. They have vegan crust or gluten free.
The servers are very friendly and the place is just cozy. Very affordable. We had a lot to eat and had plenty to take home with us.
… moreMARLIN GOODWIN
Food was great! Our server was awesome! It started off a little shaky as we were waiting a little while before someone came to our table for our drinks but a waitress saw us just sitting and asked if anyone helped us yet? We replied no so she apologized for the wait and even offered us a free appetizer she seem to be very sincere and made sure we was taken care of which meant a lot to us because we was about 2 minutes from leaving back out. Let’s be clear this is NOT a negative review but just our experience first time eating here. Even another person who seem to be either the owner of manager apologized and talked to us several times while we were there to make sure we was good so overall this was a great place the food was delicious our waitress was “EXCELLENT” I forgot her name but she said she was from Brooklyn NY she had black curly hair and we will definitely make this another one of our new spots to eat at! I highly recommend this restaurant the pizza and wings was delicious.
… morejlmcewan
I’ve learned along the way there are 3 components that are the genetic makeup to a restaurant. In no particular order they are: Food, service and location.
Food: unique, yet familiar. Pizza is almost always cheese, pepperoni, etc. with maybe a unique crust or sauce. Their menu is well thought out and you can tell some serious “chefiness” was taken into consideration. I’ll leave you with this: GET THE TUPELO HONEY.
Service: our server was the most energetic, charismatic and enthusiastic server. She was set on me trying the Tupelo honey and normally I don’t go for sweet but she convinced me it wouldn’t be overpowering. The pie was perfectly balanced with sweet, savory, salty and spicy. Kudos to management for finding someone in this tough labor market who is such a shinning light!
Location: Main Street in Downtown Davidson-10/10 Mic drop.
Very rarely does a joint hit all 3, but when it does, it’s something very special.
… moreGary & Jeannette Hauff
We visited this place during the Davidson Christmas celebration and ordered their ‘special $10 holiday drink’ that was featured on their sign. It took awhile to get our 3-drinks (nobody else was in line at the bar) and the lady behind the bar appeared to be wearing many hats. They charged $1per plastic cup, so we could walk around in the social district with our drink. Her explanation: ‘We have to pay for the cup and the sticker.’ Every other place we went to that night, nobody else charged extra for plastic cups or stickers.
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